Who Are You? by Anna Kavan Page B

the moment the girl dreads, when everything will suddenly come to an end. Although her fear isn't fully conscious she feels she must make some kind of effort to save her happiness. She starts moving the teapot in front of her as if it were some heavy object, but doesn't manage to complete the gesture, which would be futile in any case. 'Will you have some tea ?' Her low voice travels a little way into the silence, but seems to make no headway against it, and expires, leaving her mute and motionless as before.
    Her husband takes no notice whatever of her. His blue eyes stare icily, fixedly, at the visitor, with disgust and abysmal contempt. His big aristocratic nose arches itself superciliously as he asks, ' What are you doing here ? ' as though he were asking: 'Why did you ever have to emerge from the primordial slime?’
    Suede Boots, who's got up in confusion, stammers something, steps forward and holds out his hand, hardly knowing what he is doing the man's lordly, insulting behaviour, combined with the tension it's impossible to ignore, deprive him completely of his usual aplomb.
    For a second, or for several seconds, these two confront one another. They are dressed alike. Both wear shorts, and a short-sleeved bush jacket which, with belt, numerous buttoned pockets and shoulder tabs has a vaguely military aspect. But while in one case this might be the uniform of a general, in the other it's more like a Boy Scout's. The wearer's young, bare, rounded knees look half pathetic, half comic; most unlike the tough, sinewy, hairy knees of his much taller senior, who is in every way far more formidable, in his arrogance and his gaunt, mature, muscular virility, beneath which can be felt a disturbing suggestion of something faintly unbalanced.
    Suddenly, without warning, in sudden mad irritability, Dog Head lifts his clenched fist and brings it down with terrific force on the outstretched hand, knocking it away from him. 'Out !' he snaps, like a savage dog; the single-syllable command, and the accompanying jerk of the head, both express ultimate scorn.
    The young man goes very red in the face, and, inarticulate with pain and rage, bursts into unintelligible indignation, looking more than ever like a furious little boy, almost on the verge of tears. He's like a sort of juvenile Jack the Giant Killer before his opponent. Except that it's obviously the giant who will do the killing in this case.
    ‘Out !' The command is snapped for the second time, with insufferable superiority. ‘Or are you waiting to be slung out by the scruff of your neck ?'
    The young fellow's red face turns quite pale now, but he gamely assumes a fighting attitude, although it's only too evident to him that he hasn't a chance - not a hope in hell - against this lunatic, who will ‘wipe the floor
with him ', ‘make mincemeat of him ', etc.
    But at the last moment, the girl saves the situation for him by crying, ‘Oh, no . . !' and hiding her face in her hands.
    Whereupon, much relieved, he sensibly abandons his pugilistic stance, thankful for the chance to retire without being branded a coward. He pretends he is doing it for her sake, as he hurries out of the room, avoiding her with his eyes, and looking extremely uncomfortable as well as shamefaced.
    As if materialized by the order, 'Go and make sure he is off the premises,' Mohammed Dirwaza Khan receives the command with a bow, and immediately glides out in silent pursuit of the departing guest.
    Husband and wife are now left alone. The latter hasn't moved, and remains in the same position, her face hidden, while the fan's squeak reaches a maddening climax, rasping the nerves. Owing to the defective mechanism, the high, shrill screech is repeated at slightly irregular intervals, and these marginal variations are unpredictable, and as agonizing as Chinese water torture.
    The girl's silence is unendurable to the man, who now comes forward and stops in front of her, his eyes flaring crazily. As she still